Vampirism In Thailand

[Thomas_Merton]

From an article by lillianvalencia on everything.com

Pre-Buddhist Thailand had a significant amount of mythology that survived as a form of spirit worship. These spirits were known collectively as the phi. The various forms of the phi were numerous, and can be compared to the ghosts, goblins, elves, and fairies of Western Europe folklore.

Among the phi that inhabited the countryside were the ghosts of people killed and/or eaten by animals, women who died during childbirth, people who did not have proper funeral rites upon their death, and those who died suddenly and unexpectedly.

These spirits were the sources of various forms of attacks, which included vampirism-- signs of an attack were being bitten, scratched, or suddenly falling violently ill. The Phi Song Nang were one such type of phi (comparable to the pontianak of Java and Indonesia) and appeared as beautiful young women who viciously attacked and vampirized young men.

The ways of the phi were widely known among various occult practitioners, and generally a seer would be called in cases of a person who had been attacked by a phi. After using various spells and incantations the person would be rid of the spirit, and could continue their daily lives.

Anyone got any experiences of the above?

[Boon Mee]

Yep...out in Sisaket I've heard first-hand accounts of stuff like this but never with my own eyes. Those "Ban Nook" folks believe...

[Totster]

Well.... my wife likes biting me... but I don't think she is a vampire....

Oh well... for better or worse and all that...!

totster

[Thetyim]

The "phi pob" are the worst ones.

They eat your intestines and are common in the north.

[Nordlys]

Anyone got any experiences of the above?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not in Thailand, but a friend of mine from college in US said he paid some B200K to an exorcist and the phi is gone. He said it's the best money he ever paid. He was a kind of guy who was least likely to believe a story like that.

Thai people seem to think phi of woman who died during pregnancy is most to be afraid of.

[chownah]

The neighbor kids call me falang 'phi bah' sometimes. It means 'crazy ghost'. When they call me this it is an invitation to chase them around while making grunts, groan, and howling noises.

Does anyone know about the khraseu or khraheng? The khraseu is a head with only entrails below the neck...it is always female...it sort of floats along chasing its prey. It either eats people alive or sucks their blood...not sure. The kraheng is always male and has teeth like a yahk when it is active (active at full moon?...not sure) and it eats bad thing like dead things and manure.

[lampard10]

I'm getting worried now. A lot of my customers like their stakes very rare.

[Sir Burr]

MY Experience With Thai Spirits:-

Built a house on some land that we bought in Phuket. It comes time to buy and install the spirit house. I buy a beautiful one made from wood and have it put up on it's own plinth in front of the house. The missus gets in touch with the local shaman and an auspicious date and time is arranged for him to come over and do whatever they do.

The appointed day comes around and loads of food is offered to the spirit, the shaman dances around flicking holy water and muttering incantations. The missus and I kneel down in front of the spirit house whilst more mutterings are offered.

After the ceremony, the food is taken away, ready to be eaten by the mortal beings present.

Once the shaman goes the missus tells me that we are in luck. Our spirit is a Muslim "with lots of ladies". I ask her why its is good luck. She says that because he is a muslim, we don't have to offer him alcohol, or, any of the expensive fruits. He likes pineapples, guava and papaya. I ask if all these women he has with him are his wives. I get a look of scorn from the missus and she explains that these are his attendants.

I then ask how long ago our Muslim spirit died. Yet another look of scorn and the answer that he has never walked the earth in human form and that he has always been a spirit. When I asked how he got to be a Muslim, she said that I obviously didn't understand anything.

Time goes by and after a couple of rainy seasons, what was once a beautiful wooden spirit house now looks like a dilapidated spirit slum. Very unsightly.

We decide to get one of those concrete ones with bits of mirror set into it.

Another auspicious date and time is arranged with the shaman to come over and "transfer" the spirit into his new home, so that we can remove and junk his old one.

Shaman comes over, dances around, flicks holy water and mutters more incantations. He suddenly stops and fires off a flurry of Thai to the missus. I ask whats going on. Seems there is a bit of a problem. The spirit likes his old house and doesn't want to move. I ask how we are going to fix this problem.

Shaman says to missus that this is going to require stronger magic. But, of course, stronger magic is more expensive. Money changes hands and the dancing and mutterings continue.

Finally, the shaman stops, says mission accomplished and the old spirit house is carted off (probably to be dumped by the road-side where someone died in an accident sometime).

I asked the missus why did the spirit (being a spirit) need a little ladder to get inside his new place. The look of scorn returned, so, I didn't push the matter.

I then asked her, that when a piece of land that has a spirit house on it is sub-divided into blocks, and the new owners put up a spirit house on each new block, where do these new spirits come from. Missus stomps off muttering that I don't understand anything at all.

Edited May 28, 2005 by Sir Burr

[thymode91]

Well.... my wife likes biting me... but I don't think she is a vampire....

Oh well... for better or worse and all that...! 

totster 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[chuchok]

The neighbor kids call me falang 'phi bah' sometimes.  It means 'crazy ghost'.  When they call me this it is an invitation to chase them around while making grunts, groan, and howling noises.

Does anyone know about the khraseu or khraheng?  The khraseu is a head with only entrails below the neck...it is always female...it sort of floats along chasing its prey.  It either eats people alive or sucks their blood...not sure.  The kraheng is always male and has teeth like a yahk when it is active (active at full moon?...not sure) and it eats bad thing like dead things and manure.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have been told that the khrasua or grasua is female, like a vampire and only half a body whith it's guts hanging out.It flys around at night(When else!!)

Nice.

[Totster]

whith it's guts hanging out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Vampire with a beer belly...?

totster

[Wolfie]

Someone called?

[sabaijai]

Is the Phi Song Nang really 'vampiric'? I always understood them as life-threatening and soul-possessing, but not literally feeding on blood, etc.

[Abandon]

Beware of the suea smim - a man eating tiger that takes the form of a beautiful girl combing her hair in the forest. When you go to speak to her, it turns back to a tiger and eats you.

But anyway - people always call these animist beliefs that got mingled with Buddhism. While partly true, note that Buddhism does accept the existence of ghosts and there is even a whole book in the suttas (Petavatthu) describing how the merit of offerings is transferred according to the type of ghost. Besides that in the main body of suttas there are plenty of instances of the Buddha, his Disciples, and laypeople coming into cantact with ghosts, demons and devas of various kinds.

[fivevenoms]

Does anyone know about the khraseu or khraheng?

I think I recall hearing about this one. I'm not sure if it's the same one as the woman who died in childbirth, but I think so. They're beautiful by day, and floating heads by night-if they spit in your drink, and you subsequently drink it, you'll become a ghost too, if you're a woman. I forget what happens if you're a man though. Maybe she runs off with your credit cards.

I also remember that there's a tall emaciated ghost with a pinhole sized mouth, which is evidently what happens to really miserable stingy misers when they die. Don't recall what they're called though...

[chownah]

Does anyone know about the khraseu or khraheng?

I think I recall hearing about this one. I'm not sure if it's the same one as the woman who died in childbirth, but I think so. They're beautiful by day, and floating heads by night-if they spit in your drink, and you subsequently drink it, you'll become a ghost too, if you're a woman. I forget what happens if you're a man though. Maybe she runs off with your credit cards.

I also remember that there's a tall emaciated ghost with a pinhole sized mouth, which is evidently what happens to really miserable stingy misers when they die. Don't recall what they're called though...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think you have pegged the khraseu....usually she's kind of good looking in a ghoulish sort of way. If you are a man and you drink your pre-spit-in drink perhaps you become the kraheng. (My wife has corrected me and khrahang is a more correct spelling.) It sometimes seems the these two are the male and female manifestation of the same or similar misfortune. My wife just came in and agrees with all you have said about the khraseu...and she says she doen't know so much about the krahang. She says that the pinhole mouth ghost is called a 'phi pret'. If someone steals things from the temple then they might turn into a phi pret. If you become a phi pret you won't know it in your usual state...which is in the daytime....you will just think that you are normal...but at night you transform into the phi pret and you go to the temple and steal things. Also phi pret can make themselves very tall...like as tall as a tree.

[fivevenoms]

Exactly what I remember being told. The part about the Phi Pret being tall, that is. My mother-in-law evidently saw one once, but I never bothered to ask for details. Though I don't believe the Phi Pret is a particularly fearsome ghost, they don't do anything that I know of, other than ask for food, which they can't eat regardless, because of their tiny mouths. So you give their food to a monk, who will "send" the food in the same sense as when you give food to a Shrine. Or so I'm told. There really is a dizzying array of Thai ghosts, few of which I recall at the moment. I'll wait for my sister-in-law to come back-she's very vocal on the subject.

[Duality]

to cut a long story short

i made a joke of the spirits when i was in a remote area of koh samui

for the next 12 days i was on deaths doorstep with a mysterious fever

no medication would cure me infact it made me feel worse

my gf suggested that maybe i was ill because i had upset the phi and that i should go back to that place and apologise to the phi for not believing in them and their influence.

so i did what she said and the next morning i was fit as a fiddle again !

i did go back to that place and something even more strange happened but that is another story...

[Thomas_Merton]

Thanks for these fascinating insights into this aspect of Thai life.

I would like to read more, if others feel they could contribute.

[KhunPadThai]

I was recently with my wife's family in Thailand and asked if anyone had ever seen a ghost. My father-in-law hadn't, but my wife had. When she was a little kid she had been in the courtyard of her home carrying a bowl of water. At the gateway to the courtyard she saw a very tall, like as tall as a building, woman, apparently pregnant, looking at her. The woman wore a blue dress. That was all.. She didn't say whether she was scared.